MAYORAL CANDIDATE DAN HERZ HAS IDEAS FOR HELPING BEACHFRONT BUSINESSES

This was my speech at the 1/14/25 commission meeting in trying to offer a solution for all the struggling businesses along the S – Curve next to the pier. Their struggles started the day the city rushed to close down the pier on June 3, 2024:

It really gets tiring listening to district 1 commissioner Michael Hudak trying to deflect blame away from himself & the other commissioners for the financial repercussions to small business owners caused by shutting down the pier & adjacent parking lot. Hudak said on January 2nd the following, “This dais was never presented with information on how the closure of the pier would affect our businesses. I blame the city manager”. I guess he is referring to the Tom Brady of city managers, David Santucci I’m not sure where the district 1 manager went to school, but you didn’t have to graduate from the Wharton School of Business to know that if you close down a pier that attracted over 400,000 people in 2023, it may have an effect on local small businesses.

But tonight, I’m not going to waste all my 3 minutes bashing the commission when it would be in everyone’s best interest to come up with a solution. After all, these small businesses are going through some of the same problems they went through during Covid. Only now, there is no federal $$$ to help them. But maybe there is a way to make money available from the City of Deerfield Beach or the CRA to rescue these drowning businesses surrounding the S Curve. All these businesses receive almost all of their sales by credit card. There are detailed software systems like Toast that can identify to the penny the drop in sales for these businesses since the pier was shut down on June 3rd. I propose setting up working capital loans for these businesses equal to two thirds of their drop in sales from July 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024 compared to the same period from July 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023. For example, if Ocean’s 234, owned by Danielle Rosse, sales dropped by $300K during the comparison period mentioned above, they would be eligible for a $200K working capital loan. The loans would have to be personally guaranteed by the small business owner, & would have an interest rate equal to whatever the city is receiving from the bank on their idle cash balances. Repayment of principal could begin as soon as the pier reopens & could be paid back over 24 equal monthly principal payments. I would be happy to offer my assistance free of charge to the interim city manager Brimlow in designing all the details of this small business loan assistance program.

Instead of wasting everyone’s time on the blame game Mr. Hudak, why don’t we all try to work on a solution to the problem instead.